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Guardians of the Galaxy -What a Good Movie!

Except for the fact that there are only three female characters in the whole movie, and the talking raccoon outranks literally all of them in interesting characterization and probably screen time as well.

It’s a pretty good movie you guys, but the more I think about it the more angry I am at how shitty the female characters actually are. When you get right down to it, every character that’s a lady is a victim:

(This may contain spoilers actually, so I’m gonna hide the rest under a page break, read on if you’ve seen it)

Gamora: “I may be a powerful, angry warrior lady with kickass body mods, but only because my father made me this way and I hate it :(”

Her sister, robotic lady from Dr. Who: “I may be a powerful, angry, evil warrior lady with kickass body mods, but only because my father made me this way and I hate it :(”

President Glen Close: “Help! My city is being destroyed but I’m definitely a strong female character in charge of things, so I’ll just order my male dominated military leadership to make all the decisions for me and save us!”

The Collectors Slave Lady: “I hate being a slave but I’m not actually clever enough or character enough to sabotage the Collector in a better way than just grabbing this glowy rock that I know nothing about except that it probably destroys stuff.” (Bonus: She definitely paid the price for standing up to her master instead of staying submissive and continuing to embody the perfect lady slave but he’s fine. Drinking martinis and hanging out with Howard the Duck, sure showed him not to keep and demean women as slaves…)

Look, I understand some of this stuff is in effort to have some kind of a plot, and they definitely did. And I’m not trying to make some kind of extreme argument like Guardians of the Galaxy is actively sending a sexist message. As far as Marvel movies go, this was a great movie. And it was just fun and they had some cool special effects but honestly my point is just that would it kill them to even try to have a 50/50 ratio of the gender in minor characters. What about the jeweler guy or literally every member of the army and rogue squadron (those people who stole Chris Pratt as a baby) makes them have to be men? Like women can’t look gross and repeat stuff after the leader of the gang? I’m just saying, my complaints about this movie would at the very least seem less apparent and maddening if there were more lady characters in general. It’s just alienating to sell me a future where apparently women don’t exist in space unless they’re mothers/children/slaves(I would count Gomora and her sister as slaves in a way) or someone kind of famous that they shoved into a leadership role who is all around impotent as a world leader but hey look! She’s a woman.

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2 thoughts on “Guardians of the Galaxy -What a Good Movie!”

I don’t know why, despite being a big sci-fi and superhero fan, I just can’t seem to get excited about this film. When it eventually airs on HBO or Showtime I’ll probably watch it then, for free. But I don’t have any compulsion to go to theater or get the DVD when that’s released. Everyone I see on FB talking about it loved it, though.

AGREED. The sad thing is, i’ve grown so used to the pathetic portrayal of women in the media that I almost overlook it. And let’s be honest, it’s a pretty accurate reflection of what society as a whole thinks of women. I got a kick out of the movie, regardless. Love your blog! Care to check out mine? downwiththenorm.com